THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE GREEN PARTY

THE 2000 CAMPAIGN: THE GREEN PARTY; Nader Wants Apology From Debate Panel for Turning Him Away

By CAREY GOLDBERG

Published: October 5, 2000

BOSTON, Oct. 4—
Ralph Nader saw it as bad enough that he was barred from participating in Tuesday night's presidential debate. But to be barred from even attending it? Even in a secondary hall separate from the actual debate? When he even had a ticket, albeit one passed on to him by a supporter?

Mr. Nader, the Green Party presidential candidate, said today that he was calling for a full apology from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which runs the debates, and wanted the commission to contribute $25,000 to a project on electoral reform at Harvard Law School.

Otherwise, he said, he planned to bring a civil rights lawsuit accusing the commission of wrongfully excluding him from the hall at the University of Massachusetts.

''I just think I have to do that because of possible future misbehavior by the debate commission,'' Mr. Nader said in a telephone interview today. ''They are obviously drunk with their own power.''

Janet H. Brown, the executive director of the commission, said today that the tickets to the debate ''are clearly intended not to be transferable, and if someone comes in who did not receive a ticket from one of those groups who have the authority to distribute them, then it is our policy that they are not invited to attend the event.''

Asked if Mr. Nader had been specially targeted for expulsion, Ms. Brown repeated, ''There was an understanding that if anyone came who had not received the ticket either personally or through their organization, then they are not invited.''

She said she did not know if others had been barred for that reason. Security was extremely tight at the debates, in part because of the possibility that the live television feed could be interrupted by a disruption from an audience member.

''It's a private event, we're a private sponsor,'' Ms. Brown said, and in any case, ''The purpose of the debate is for the television audience at home, not for the rather small number of people in the hall who are there to represent the host institutions that made this happen.''

As Mr. Nader and reporters who witnessed it described the incident, he had a ticket given to him by a student supporter, and he rode a bus with other ticket-holders onto the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston.

The ticket had no name on it, Mr. Nader said, and specified that it was an invitation to a predebate discussion and then a remote viewing of the debate in a separate hall. He had also been invited to offer on-air commentary after the debate by Fox News, he said.

But when Mr. Nader got off the bus, he was stopped by a man who described himself as a security consultant for the debate commission and told him that though he had a ticket, he had not been invited and could not enter the premises, any of the premises.

The man was backed up by three state troopers, who threatened to arrest Mr. Nader if he did not leave.

As captured by radio reporters and aired on Boston's WBZ Radio today, Mr. Nader challenged the man: ''Deep down inside, do you agree?''

And the man responded, ''Sir, it's irrelevant.''

The incident, which Mr. Nader estimated lasted an hour or so, what with bus trips back and forth and cell-phone calls and arguments, would be deeply unpleasant for most people, but Mr. Nader sounded sanguine today.

''I swear I did not pay for this whole interaction,'' he said, ''because this is going to be the worst single blunder the debate commission has ever made.''

Meanwhile, Mr. Nader and several other plaintiffs are also suing the Federal Election Commission, arguing that corporate financing of the presidential debates amounts to an illegal corporate campaign contribution. They lost last month in Federal District Court, but their appeal is scheduled to be heard in Boston on Thursday.

Photo: Ralph Nader rode the subway and then a bus to the presidential debate in Boston on Tuesday night but was turned away at the door. (Associated Press)